Fortress of Owls by C. J. Cherryh Page A

opinions, had realized too little and too late how very extensively these men were accustomed to having their will of his father and directing those opinions … and nowadays he wondered how many of the worst decisions of his father’s reign had been his father’s and how many were in fact Ryssand’s instigation.
    Certainly he had come to court in blither certainty and confidence of the world than he held now. Yet it was Ryssand, ultimately, who had rued the clash of wills … and Cefwyn could congratulate himself on having had his way in all meaningful things. Save this one.
    Save this one, for at last, on the eve of the wedding and with the Quinalt granting all else and reconciled to performing the ceremony, he had slipped in the word queen , and a small delegation of lords and priests had presented him in turn the last, the most stringent and inflexible objection of the clergy: royal expectation aside, there had never quite been a queen of Ylesuin, even counting his father’s mother and his, and Efanor’s, and the Quinalt had come armed with chapter and verse to prove its case, a veritable parade of clerks and clerics.
    It was true. It might be Cefwyn’s argument that the omission was never intended for precedent, only that his grandmother had died before his grandfather’s rule began and his mother and Efanor’s mother had both been of Guelen burgesses and not royal, only wellborn. It was circumstance, not intent, in his argument, that had kept Ylesuin from having a queen, but that mattered little, when down to the day and in the toppling of all other obstacles, they had come to dicing words and titles and listening to long recitations of clerkly records. Facing the possibility of another disaffection of the Quinalt Patriarch, whom he had bought in costly coin of favors given, Cefwyn had had to admit that perhaps the reluctance to crown the king’s wife was not an insurmountable slight to his bride, who would reign in Elwynor with or without the acknowledgment of Ylesuin, and who was, moreover, pleading with him to accept that slight and get on to the wedding. What she wanted for herself and her people was the alliance, and an army potent enough to drive Tasmôrden from his siege of her capital. She wanted no delays and she wanted that army to set its first contingents in order at the bridges immediately after the wedding. To that he agreed, for the situation in Elwynor had been growing grim then and was growing grimmer to this hour.
    She would reign, indeed, as he willed: as they did not make her queen, so they could not trammel up her claim to the Regency of Elwynor, and he would provide—was providing—the army even tonight with his first forces camped on riverside.
    And it would be her kingdom, separate from his. That was the unfortunate seed in what his barons had done: they had made it impossible for him to persuade her, win her, contrary to the provisions of the marriage treaty, to an early union of their kingdoms. She had insisted on her independency and her own lordship over neighboring Elwynor in the nuptial agreement … and that, most precisely, she had, thanks to the barons, without any possibility of argument on his part. Reign she would, in her land, during the summers, so they planned, leaving winters to a vice regent in her land, and gods hope they could ply rowboats between often enough or they would both go mad.
    The raising of armies and the defense of their separate kingdoms aside, they loved one another madly, passionately, and to the edge, but not quite over the brink, of complete folly, and their passion had not abated since the wedding night. There was no having enough of one another. They were entirely happy in their nest upstairs. They would neither one act to the detriment of their separate kingdoms … but their fingers met whenever they found the chance, and had he ever seen eyes light as hers did whenever he came within her